Pilot Study of a Program to Increase Mothers’ Understanding of Dads

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12137
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Eric Vecere,Jay Fagan,Christopher Brown,Mollie Cherson
• Published date: 01 December 2015

Pilot Study of a Program to Increase Mothers’

Understanding of Dads

JAY FAGAN*

MOLLIE CHERSON*

CHRISTOPHER BROWN*

ERIC VECERE*

The present study evaluated the effects of mothers’ participation in an 8-week coparent-

ing intervention program, Understanding Dad

TM

, on mothers’ awareness and attitudes

regarding how their relationships with fathers influence paternal involvement with

children, knowledge of healthy pro-relationship skills, and relationship self-efficacy. Thirty-

four mothers were recruited from four sites to participate in a study that used a pretest/

posttest one-group design. Over the course of this 8-week program, mothers demonstrated

moderate to large gains in each of the outcome measures, after controlling for mothers’

educational level. Moreover, there was one significant within-subjects interaction effect for

time 9location. That is, mothers made significantly greater gains in pro-relationship

knowledge in one of theintervention sites. Implications for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Coparenting; Gatekeeping; Responsible Fatherhood; Relationship Awareness

Fam Proc 54:581–589, 2015

Society is increasingly demanding that men who bear children assume an active, nur-

turing father role. A growing body of research literature has also documented the

many factors that influence the extent to which fathers are involved with their children

(Holmes & Huston, 2010). One factor that has received considerable attention by research-

ers and practitioners in recent years is the influence of the mother–father coparenting

relationship. Though coparenting as a family process often extends beyond mothers and

fathers (Baker, McHale, Strozier, & Cecil, 2010; Burton & Hardaway, 2012; McHale &

Lindahl, 2011), in this paper we focus on coparenting as “the ways that parents work

together in their roles as parents” (Feinberg, 2003, p. 1499). Mother–father coparenting

may be especially relevant to fathers’ involvement with children (Kulik & Tsoref, 2010;

Waller, 2012).

Researchers have suggested that the quality of the coparenting relationship may be

especially important among low-income families because fathers face a greater range of

barriers to ongoing engagement with their children (Futris & Schoppe-Sullivan, 2007).

Low-income fathers and mothers are at higher risk of divorce and marital and cohabita-

tion separation (Roy & Smith, 2013). Low-income fathers are also more likely to have

resided in separate households from their biological children since the birth of the child

(Walker & McGraw, 2000). Fathers who do not reside with their children often do not have

regular access to the child and are likely to rely more heavily on a positive copar enting

relationship with the mother to stay involved with the child (Fagan & Palkovitz, 2011).

*School of Social Work, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jay Fagan, 13th St. & Cecil B. Moore

Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: jfagan@temple.edu.

581

Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12137